Legends narrate that, lysergic prophet Timothy Leary used to dose the drinks at parties with LSD, but it might not have been necessary. The radical cultural shift of 1960s already made recreational Drugs a symbol of Taboo. By 1967, year of the Summer of Love, the free spirited bohemians made their a valiant bid to supplant the dominant culture, and in retrospect a strong case can be made that the counter-culture won. Like enclave of San Fransisco , the whole USA, Canada and Europe became even more of a melting pot of politics, drugs, music, creativity, and the total lack of sexual and social inhibition than it already was.
The symbolic forefront of the insurrection in Britain were acts like Pink Floyd, till the the paraphernalia of the Under Ground music. Their musical psychedelic drugs was a toast to Paul McCartney's journey to the zenith, but they never claimed to be recognised as the harbinger of the revolution. The cornered psychotropic musicians, became the leaders to their fellow traveler with their ravishing debut The Pipers at the gates of dawn. The world got a sonic, kaleidoscopic sound that echoed through the brain and heart of silence society.
Piper was recorded at Abbey Road at the same time the Beatles were there recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the results couldn't have been more at odds with one another. Where the Beatles exerted complete control over the tools of the studio, Pink Floyd used the studio to lose control. It didn't hurt that the band's primary songwriter and visionary Syd Barrett was on the verge of permanently losing control himself. Less than a year after the release of Piper, in 1967, Barrett was out of the band, one of the most prominent and tragic casualties of the rock era. Of course, while Barrett lived out the remainder of his life as one of the psychedelic age's walking wounded, Pink Floyd went on to much bigger (if not necessarily) better things.
The first side opens with the outer space chatter of a thousand space missions intoning the names of the stars and we’re plunged in to a prime slice of mid-sixties freak-out territory. Syd’s guitar is fabulously lithe. There follows a series of tales of cats, silver shoes, unicorns, mice called Gerald, bikes, gnomes, scarecows and the I Ching. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? But in 1967 this was fresh and new, and what’s more it’s delivered utterly charmingly and with no hint of received American pronunciation merely to be cool. It’s been said before, but this is Edward Lear for the acid generation.
Then in the black hole between these tracks we get Syd’s other side, the shining, blasted sci fi tones of his guitar rumbling through the extended work out of “Interstellar Overdrive”.
This is the paradox with Barrett. He could seemingly write material that was both poppy and deeply out there with ease. Who knows how the Floyd would have sounded had he held on. Definitely different that’s for sure. But Piper remains a testament to a mind that, for a brief spell, saw no boundaries…
The symbolic forefront of the insurrection in Britain were acts like Pink Floyd, till the the paraphernalia of the Under Ground music. Their musical psychedelic drugs was a toast to Paul McCartney's journey to the zenith, but they never claimed to be recognised as the harbinger of the revolution. The cornered psychotropic musicians, became the leaders to their fellow traveler with their ravishing debut The Pipers at the gates of dawn. The world got a sonic, kaleidoscopic sound that echoed through the brain and heart of silence society.
Piper was recorded at Abbey Road at the same time the Beatles were there recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the results couldn't have been more at odds with one another. Where the Beatles exerted complete control over the tools of the studio, Pink Floyd used the studio to lose control. It didn't hurt that the band's primary songwriter and visionary Syd Barrett was on the verge of permanently losing control himself. Less than a year after the release of Piper, in 1967, Barrett was out of the band, one of the most prominent and tragic casualties of the rock era. Of course, while Barrett lived out the remainder of his life as one of the psychedelic age's walking wounded, Pink Floyd went on to much bigger (if not necessarily) better things.The first side opens with the outer space chatter of a thousand space missions intoning the names of the stars and we’re plunged in to a prime slice of mid-sixties freak-out territory. Syd’s guitar is fabulously lithe. There follows a series of tales of cats, silver shoes, unicorns, mice called Gerald, bikes, gnomes, scarecows and the I Ching. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? But in 1967 this was fresh and new, and what’s more it’s delivered utterly charmingly and with no hint of received American pronunciation merely to be cool. It’s been said before, but this is Edward Lear for the acid generation.
Then in the black hole between these tracks we get Syd’s other side, the shining, blasted sci fi tones of his guitar rumbling through the extended work out of “Interstellar Overdrive”.
This is the paradox with Barrett. He could seemingly write material that was both poppy and deeply out there with ease. Who knows how the Floyd would have sounded had he held on. Definitely different that’s for sure. But Piper remains a testament to a mind that, for a brief spell, saw no boundaries…
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